And so the war began again
by TexasAlex123
Summary: Dorcas Lydia Meadowes, daughter of the Dorcas Meadowes thought she left the wizarding world behind when she joined the muggle police force. With the Second Wizarding War coming in 1995, her loyalties to the world she was born in and the world she has grown to love will be tested, as well as her fear over her guardianship of a werewolf child.
1. Chapter 1

Her name was Dorcas Lydia Meadowes. She was the granddaughter of Dorcas Mary Meadowes and _the _Dorcas Anne Meadowes. The Meadowes were a famously matriarchal family, and when she was born on a sticky July day in 1973, her mother had not hesitated in bestowing upon her the family name before running off to join the Order of the Phoenix.

Dorcas Lydia rarely saw much of her mother for the eight years that she was present in her life. Dorcas Anne was a fantastically gifted witch and staunch supporter of Dumbledore, loyal to her very core, but maternal she was not. An opinion of herself motherhood had only seemed to reinforce. Dorcas Lydia could count on one hand the number of times her mother showed her any affection. She couldn't recall a time where she told her she loved her.

Therefore Dorcas Lydia was raised by her grandmother, an old-fashioned yet kindly witch who was devoted to her daughter, granddaughter and family name. She wondered if her grandmother disapproved of her daughter's lifestyle, but Dorcas Mary Meadowes had never said anything, and her granddaughter too afraid to ask.

Her mother died when she was eight years old. Dorcas Lydia and her grandmother has been eating breakfast at the kitchen table when her silvery doe materialised and informed them of the news. Dorcas Lydia remembered very little of what actually happened besides the anguished crying of her grandmother, and the doe itself. She had wondered how to make an animal look like that and whether her grandmother knew.

At her mother's funeral she overheard a grizzly man telling a handsome dark haired man how her mother had been killed by You-Know-Who personally. She remembered the near reverence in both men's voices as they discussed it, as she stood wondering what was so great about that, being eight and rather ignorant of the terror spreading around the wizarding world. They had then been silenced by the dark-haired man's companion, a tired looking mousy haired man, who gave her a square of chocolate.

Years later she learned that her mother had died in the living room of the cottage she was hiding in, clad only in her nightgown. She could picture the scene too easily, her mother sprawled out and empty eyed, wearing the blue, flannel nightgown her mother had bought her for Christmas. Dorcas Lydia thought that if that was a death others were awed by, she hoped to die in her bed where no-one would see.

For the remainder of her childhood, Dorcas Lydia was raised by her grandmother. The identity of her father was unknown though her grandmother was certain that he had been killed by Death Eaters. Dorcas Lydia was of the opinion that he had learned of her existence in her mother's womb and hightailed it out of there.

Like every other magical child in Great Britain, she went to Hogwarts when she was eleven. The sorting hat placed her in Ravenclaw almost immediately (every Meadowes had been a Ravenclaw, except her Gryffindor mother), and had immediately felt the weight of expectation heaped upon her.

"_That's Dorcas Meadowes' daughter, You-Know-Who killed her personally you know. Extraordinary witch, I wonder if the daughter is anything like her."_

After overhearing a teacher say that, Dorcas Lydia strove to be as normal as possible. She made friends, went on trips to Hogsmeade, did well on her OWLS and NEWTS and never made any effort to distinguish herself from the crowd.

Several days before she graduated from Hogwarts her grandmother died, leading her to spend her first days of adulthood planning a funeral.

After it ended she stood in front of her mother's grave and studied the dates on it intently. Dorcas Anne Meadowes had only been twenty-seven when she died. She had seemed much older when Dorcas Lydia was eight.

She wished she could have asked her mother did she think it was worth it, defending a society that was deeply afraid of anything and everything that was different. A society where many of its inhabitants had welcomed the ideas of Voldemort (_she is not afraid to say his name. Why should she be afraid of the made-up name of a ludicrously self-important bully?_) Dorcas Lydia doesn't understand why people would want to slaughter the majority of the population in England. Muggles were much cleverer than any wizarding folk. Whenever they faced prejudice in America or South Africa, they fought and overcame it as best they could. Wizards and witches seemed content to brush away werewolves; vampires etc. and then somehow been surprised when they sided with a man who promised them freedom.

Dorcas Lydia supposed that this made her good, if morality could be defined in such black and white terms. (_She wonders what her mother thought._)

So she ran. Ran and joined the Muggle world, the people she had watched through the window of her grandmother's cottage when she was young. She had taken Muggle Studies for an OWL and NEWT, and knew which society she wanted to belong to. While Professor Binns had droned on about Goblin Rebellions, Dorcas Lydia had read books about Elizabeth I, Martin Luther King, Winston Churchill, JFK and numerous other icons under her desk. How amazing people like them could be deserving of death because they couldn't use a wand was beyond her. The fact that they did what they did with no magic whatsoever only increased her admiration of them.

She forged documents for herself, including GCSE and A level results as well as a birth certificate. She then, reminded of the countless hours she had spent reading Sherlock Holmes stories under her covers at night, enlisted in a police training program and began to climb up the career ladder at Scotland Yard.

On her documents she called herself Lydia Mary Meadowes. She didn't want the reminder of her mother anymore; she wanted to be free of the weight of expectation that had been hanging over her like a dark shadow all her life. Dorcas Lydia Meadowes had not been free, but Lydia Mary Meadowes was.

Until it all ended in 1995, when she received a call summoning her to a crime scene. Recently promoted to sergeant, she stared at the body of the man on the living room floor of his suburban house, the rest of his family strewn around. Gazing at his lifeless eyes and horrified expression, reminiscent of how she pictured her mother's corpse when she was found, Lydia knew that the war that had supposedly ended when Voldemort tried to murder an infant Harry Potter had not really ended, it was only the wizarding world's First War. A Second War, such as it had in the muggle world, was starting.


	2. Chapter 2

If there was one thing that Lydia Meadowes hated most about crime scenes in houses, it was the photographs. The dozens of pictures that would be inevitably scattered throughout the living room, kitchen and bedroom, all displaying heart-warming and touching moments of family life. It was altogether more haunting then frenetic wizarding photographs that never sat still long enough for her to guess the nature of image.

The corpse she was stood over was that of a man, Mr Oliver. His wife was in the hallway and his two children were still in bed upstairs. The man would have had a pleasant face if it wasn't twisted up in horror and fear. He was also a muggleborn judging from his suburban home and the wand in his jean pocket. Before anyone had seen it Lydia had snatched it and hidden it in her handbag along with hers. She could only imagine the fallout if the wand accidentally went off in the evidence lock-up.

"Pathologist can't figure out what killed them," a voice came from behind her. Lydia turned around and smiled as she saw DI George Jones leaning against the doorframe with a cup of coffee. "They haven't got a mark on them."

"I'm sure Dr McGuire will come up with a cause of death," Lydia replied calmly, trying to ignore the knots in her stomach. The Killing Curse always left its victims unblemished. "Has a time of death been estimated?"

"Approximately five this morning they think," George said, running a hand through his blonde hair.

"Why up so early?" Lydia asked, "What did the Olivers do for a living?"

"Mrs Oliver was a chef at a restaurant nearby, Mr Oliver is a different story. In fact there appears to be no record of him after the age of eleven."

Lydia knew it would be considered somewhat macabre, but she was pleased her inference was right. While Mr Oliver was obviously a muggleborn, she suspected that Mrs Oliver was either a muggle or a squib.

"The two children were found dead in bed weren't they?" she pushed further, trying to paint the full picture of the crime scene in her mind.

"Poor things," George murmured, "I hope they didn't realise what was happening."

Lydia momentarily glanced around the living room and her eyes focused on one of the pictures on the coffee table. It showed the family at Disneyland, beaming away and wearing Mickey Mouse hats. What really struck her however was the fact that in the photograph there were three, not two children.

"The Olivers have three children," she whispered to herself, before repeating it louder to George.

George nodded and shouted to one of the Sergeants upstairs to check out the bedrooms. The reply was three children's rooms and Mr and Mrs Olivers' room.

"Where is the kid though?" George said as they moved out into the hallway, "was he kidnapped?"

Lydia stopped in the kitchen and noticed a door off to one side. "George, help me get this door down!" she called out.

"Why's someone locked it," George thought aloud, examining the large padlock on the door. "What's down here?"

"Help me get the door open and we can find out," Lydia said, rolling her eyes in frustration.

George motioned for her to stand back and rammed the door with his shoulder until it gave way.

"Let me go first," Lydia said, peering into the gloom, "follow me."

George tried to protest but she shushed him by raising one finger. She slowly descended the stairs clutching the railing for support. The wooden stairs creaked under her and George's weight, leading her to fear that they might fall through.

When they reached the bottom, Lydia rummaged in her handbag and was half-tempted to pull out her wand and cast _Lumos_, before remembering that George was a muggle. Instead she pulled out her flashlight and flicked the on switch.

There, in the middle of mountains of shredded blankets and pillows, lay a small naked boy. Bloodied and shivering yet very much alive.

"What's he doing down here?" George asked rhetorically, while the gears in Lydia's mind whirred away, coming up with one word.

_Werewolf_. 


	3. Chapter 3

Lydia knew that one day she would regret altering the memories of the Scotland Yard homicide department, the forensic team, and several social workers. The day was far away but she would regret it.

She didn't particularly like using magic on people who couldn't fight back, though she had enjoyed using her wand for more than household spells for the first time in ages. And she had done it for a noble reason, more specifically if you place a werewolf child in a Muggle foster home, come full moon it will be a veritable blood bath.

She had quickly discovered the boy's name was Isaac Oliver, considering that addressing someone as 'werewolf child' a tad derogatory. Aged only nine years old, when told about the murder of his entire family, the child had cried so hard for an hour, Lydia was afraid he would choke. Such an outburst of emotion made her somewhat uncomfortable, when her mother

Besides altering her Muggle colleagues' minds to believe that the basement door had been locked from the inside by Mark taking refuge, she also convinced them that she should take custody of Isaac instead of relegating him to a bleak existence in a children's home. She didn't fancy returning in a months' time to see a massacre.

Lydia had spent the time it took for the medics to patch Isaac up after his transformation, (in their minds they were self-defence injuries), and trolled the high streets looking for clothing suitable for a nine year old boy. All of Isaac's belongings were now in a crime scene and forensics wouldn't release them for at least a week.

As she made her way through the rows of children's clothing at Marks & Spencer, she couldn't help but wonder what she had gotten herself into. At twenty-two she wasn't even sure is she wanted to ever have children, let alone take guardianship of one that turned into a werewolf once or twice a month. Not that she had anything against werewolves or any other magical creatures. Lydia never understand why wizards and witches were so terrible to people suffering from lycanthropy, surely they needed love and kindness the most?

As Lydia carried Spiderman pyjamas, jeans and shirts to the counter she heard malicious whispering coming from behind her. As she turned around she saw two middle-aged, dowdy women staring at her pointedly.

"Can I help you?" she asked, rolling her eyes in annoyance. "Am I doing anything to offend you?"

The plumper of the two women puffed herself up and addressed her. "I was just telling my friend how I find it so sad that the young women of today are having children so very young and unmarried" she said pompously, looking at Lydia's bare ring finger.

Normally Lydia would give another eye-roll and walk away, but the combination of seeing nearly an entire family dead due to the Killing Curse, and the sudden guardianship of a child, she was less inclined to take anything from anyone.

"Well what can I say," she told the gruesome twosome in a sickly sweet voice, "I was the easiest thirteen year old on the playground. Now if you excuse me I had better hurry home to my council flat to abuse my fifteen children."

She tried not to laugh as she heard the women whisper furiously behind her. That would keep them busy as they gossiped over their fences for weeks to come.

After she got back to Scotland Yard she took Isaac home. Lydia always felt a fission of excitement shoot through her whenever she saw the building, with its gleaming metallic sign, proudly pronouncing its legendary name. Back in her fifth year at Hogwarts during her career talk in preparation for her OWLS, she had been told that she was suited for a career in Magical Law Enforcement. Lydia was glad she hadn't taken their advice; no career in Ministry of Magic could invoke the same thrill in her.

Throughout the walk home Isaac was silent. Lydia tried to engage him in conversation, asking about school, friends, football, TV, anything a young boy might be interested in, but he remained silent. Feeling a vast amount of pity for this little boy who had just lost everything, Lydia decided to talk about her family.

"I was a year younger then you when my mother died," she began, sneaking a sideways glance at Isaac. Though he didn't raise his head to look at her, she had a sneaking suspicion he was listening. "I was told she had died when I was eating breakfast. A Patronus told my grandmother and I, it's a sort of silvery animal that wizards and witches can make with their wands."

For the first time, his voice scratchy and hoarse, Isaac spoke. "How did your mum die?"

"A bad man killed her," Lydia replied, "she didn't agree with his ideas and she was working with other people to stop him."

Isaac was quiet for a moment, as if to process what she had told him before he asked, "do you miss her?"

Lydia found herself mute for a moment. When she was eight her mother had been a far off idealisation rather than a woman to her, due to their lack of relationship. When she had died Lydia hadn't felt like she had lost anything important, her grandmother had raised her and was therefore the most important person to her. However after the death of her grandmother, Lydia had begun to realise just how much she had lost, especially with the absence of a father. Now if she married or had children, there would be no family to rejoice with.

"I do," she said, trying to steady her voice. It had never quavered before, and she'd be damned before she'd let it happen again, especially in front of a traumatised little boy.

Isaac lapsed back into silence, only talking once they arrived at Lydia's house.

"Is this where you live?" he said disbelievingly.

Lydia didn't blame Isaac for the surprise. With her cheap polyester shirt and 'good' skirt that had been re-hemmed numerous times, she wouldn't be an obvious candidate for living in a house like the one that she did. But the Meadowes had money like many old pure-blood families, and while Lydia mainly lived on her salary, for her accommodation she had splurged.

Lydia's house at one time had been a quarter of an old Victorian mansion in London, now divided as the population grew but the amount of housing remained the same. The house was still rather large though, equipped with several bedrooms, bathrooms, a basement and a garden. It was painted a powder blue with white-rimmed windows and doors. Though it did lean to one side and Lydia was fairly sure that the attic was haunted she adored living there.

As Lydia tried to pull her keys out of her handbag while smiling reassuringly at Isaac, the front door swung open and both nearly fell inside.

"You're home early!" Lydia's best friend and roommate, Ava Yaxley said, frowning at the pair of them. "With a murder and all I thought you would be late home tonight."

Isaac gave a whimper and clung to Lydia's skirt, causing Ava's pale eyebrows to disappear into her dirty-blonde hair.

"Is he okay?" she asked with great concern. "My shift at the hospital is in two hours so I could take him if you wanted?"

"Hey Isaac, how about you go and watch TV in the living room while I talk to my friend here," Lydia told the boy, ushering him onto their couch, cheeks simultaneously burning for talking in a ridiculous sing-song voice.

"Why so serious chum?" Ava said jokingly as they hurried into the kitchen, closing the door behind them with a flick of Ava's wand.

"You might want to sit down," Lydia told her, playing with a strand of her dark hair that had escaped from her bun.

"I'll stand, what is it?"

"The murder today," Lydia began with a deep breath, "a muggleborn and his family were murdered with the Killing Curse. The boy in our living room is the only survivor and a werewolf."

Ava's pale skin went waxy for a moment, making her seem more statue then human. "They're back aren't they?" she whispered, a catch in her throat.

Lydia nodded slowly. "Apparently one of the neighbours saw the Dark Mark above the house for several minutes before it dissipated."

Ava buried her face in her hands, before rubbing her eyes and clasping her hands together. "Was my dad there, serving his beloved Dark Lord?"

"You know it's impossible to tell."

There was dead silence in the kitchen for several minutes, as each woman (really no more than girls), came to realise that the evil that had hung over them in their formative years had never really gone, but had now come back.

"We're going to die aren't we?" Ava said to no-one in particular, "me the blood traitor daughter of a Death Eater, and you the child of a member of the Order of the Phoenix. We'll be the first to go!"

Lydia tore a piece of the kitchen roll off and handed it to Ava so she could dab her eyes. "Don't worry," Lydia told her jokingly, "they'll never kill you with your pure-blood and all. You may have to marry a Death Eater, but at least you'll live in a nice house."

Ava chuckled, drying her eyes. "I live in a nice house already and you're a pure-blood too."

"My mother, _the_ Dorcas Meadowes was. No-one knows about my father, mum assured Nana that he was, but I bet he was a muggleborn, or even a muggle!"

Ava put her arm around Lydia's shoulder, before asking "did you say that the boy in our living room is a werewolf?"

"Yes, he's living with us for a while. Any problem?"

"Is the basement okay for full moons do you think?" Ava asked thoughtfully. "Is it big enough?"

Lydia grinned, "I knew there was a reason I liked you Ava! Most loyal and caring friend of mine!"

"And they said there's no such thing as a good Slytherin!" she retorted with a wink.

"If you didn't have any ambition you wouldn't be a muggle doctor, and your cunning got us out of that run-in with Snape!"

"I guess so; do you want me to bring dinner on the way home from work?

"I'm gonna go and get something for Isaac now, but thanks!"

Lydia and Ava smiled at each other and clung to the other for several more minutes. With everything suddenly changing for the worst again, it was nice to know you could rely on your friends. 


	4. Chapter 4

Lydia found herself unable to sleep that night. She drifted in and out of consciousness until she finally roused herself a little after midnight, sweat causing her nightgown to cling to her skin.

She wandered out of her room and paused at the door of the room that Isaac was staying in. Earlier on she thought she had heard crying, but he was quiet now, causing Lydia to go downstairs, afraid she would disturb him.

Ava had still not returned from her hospital shift and Lydia found herself pressing her face against the cool glass of the living room window, gazing out at the few muggle stragglers hurrying to get home. A homeless man had set up outside on her doorstep and she had no heart to move him. In fact as she took in his patchwork clothes and thin frame shivering in the cold London air, she found herself pitying him more than she usually would. Lydia wondered if encountering Isaac today had left her heart more open to sympathy then it usually was.

She went into the kitchen and boiled the kettle, pouring the steaming water and putting tea bags into two mugs. She only put milk in hers but dumped sugar as well into the second, reckoning that the man needed it. As she to open the door to give it to the man, on an impulse she pulled one of the blankets of the couch and handed it to him as well, not wanting the man to die of exposure on her front doorstep.

She curled up under the remaining blanket on the couch in the living room, happily warming her hands against the mug. She was tempted to put the TV on, but fearful it might wake Isaac, flicked through one of the trashy muggle magazines that Ava so loved, using the lamp next to her as a light source.

When she was finished with her tea, Lydia got up and stared at all the photographs on the mantelpiece, wrapping the blanket around her.

Nearly all of them were of her and Ava, some at Hogwarts, some on holiday and one at Ava's university mixer. They tended to take them down when muggles came over to visit. Having to wipe their memories because of moving images was not something that Lydia wanted to go through again.

The only one that did not include Ava was a photograph that was taken when Lydia was seven, accompanied by her mother and grandmother. She got a shock as she studied the picture, amazed at how she had never noticed the resemblance between her and her mother. While Dorcas Meadowes had been an extremely talented witch, a great beauty she was not with her widely spaced eyes, sharp nose and broad mouth. The physical differences that Lydia could see between them was that Dorcas's hair was a lighter shade of brown, her eyes were a paler blue, and she was much shorter then Lydia's five foot ten. Her grandmother had always said that she must have taken after her father in height, for Meadowes women were renowned for their miniature stature. Lydia liked to joke that there was pixie blood in the family.

Lydia wondered if her mother was here what she would have said about having Isaac to stay. She could have imagined her grandmother's reaction all too well, braying about the immorality of Dark Creatures and that the only placed they belonged was Azkaban. Her mother would have been different though, surely a pure-blooded witch that had spent her adult life working for the Order of the Phoenix would have been more forward thinking then that.

What Lydia knew for sure was that it would be pointless raising the death of Isaac's family to the Ministry of Magic. After all why would such a pure-blood, prejudiced organisation care about the death of a muggleborn and his squib wife? She also vaguely remembered when she was much younger, hearing stories of how when Voldemort first came to power, the Ministry was infiltrated and compromised. She couldn't risk it, especially with Isaac to think of. She could only imagine what the Ministry would do to him if informed about his existence, probably lock him in a cage or hand him over to a savage like Greyback. But Lydia knew she needed a game plan. Caring for a traumatised little boy was one thing, caring for one that turned into a slavering beast come full moon was quite another. She needed someone to talk to, but who?

When Ava returned home, a little after six in the morning, Lydia was waiting at the door for her.

"I'm going to go and see Dumbledore," she announced to her bemused friend as she struggled through the door.

Ava looked at her blearily. There were dark bruises under her eyes, her hair was pulled back from her forehead and her scrubs were violently creased under her lime-green coat. "Jolly good," she said sarcastically, "mind if I get in the door first?"

"Rough night?" Lydia asked with concern, taking her friend's coat and hanging it up on the coat rack.

"Why people think it is a great idea to get smashed and drive I'll never know," she said, her thin lips compressing into a hard line. "Also had to take care of a schizophrenic guy who was shrieking all over the place while we waited for the Psych ward to send someone down to pick him up. Had to give him my coffee and half of my chicken sandwich before he would be quiet and stop freaking people out."

"I hear NHS hospitals are a nightmare," Lydia said, hoping she had read that correctly in a muggle newspaper.

Ava threw her handbag onto the couch and loosened her ponytail before asking, "Why are you going to visit Dumbledore? I thought the beauty of graduating from Hogwarts is that we are unlikely to encounter our headmaster again."

"I need advice about Isaac."

"Why? Just put him in the cellar at full moon and everything will be as right as rain."

"Does he need a special diet though? What about healing spells? If we're not good enough come full moon he could cut himself and bleed to death. What about comforting him? We're not therapists. I just to find someone I can talk to about this and I'm sure he'll know someone."

"You want to tell him about the murders don't you?" Ava said, cocking one eyebrow as she flopped herself onto the couch.

"Someone has to," Lydia said, "those people deserve some justice and Isaac needs help."

"I have a day off today. I can watch Isaac if you want to apparate up."

"Thank you," Lydia told her gratefully, "But you might want to rest up first."

"Do you think the kid can get breakfast himself?" Ava asked, curling up into a ball. "Maybe lunch as well?"

"I think I'll leave after he's woken up, so I can explain to him how to use the TV and where the food is kept."

"It's 1995, don't all kids now know how to operate electronics?"

Lydia chuckled, "only if you're a muggle child. Wizardkind remains sadly clueless."

They smiled at each other, only to be interrupted by creaking coming from the landing above them. Isaac was awake.


End file.
